Winter Song (2 page)

‘I see. How long have you been away?' he asked gently—he put a hand lightly upon one of the ugly hands on the coverlet.

‘I don't know.'

‘Don't you remember?'

‘Don't know.'

‘What was your ship, Mr Fury?'

‘I don't care. Where is my wife—her name's Fanny?'

‘All in good time. I see you have been in hospital.'

‘Yes,' almost sullenly.

‘You are very ill,' said the priest.

There was no answer.

He put his fingers on the man's forehead, he stroked the forehead, then he wiped the sweat on his handkerchief. ‘Rest,' he said, then he turned away and went quietly out.

He sent for Delahane as soon as he reached his office.

‘When those young fellows have slept off their drunkenness, you may return these papers to them, and then see them off the premises.' He handed the collection of documents to Delahane.

‘I have got the old man's name. He has just told me. I'm afraid that old man has been dragged everywhere imaginable by those two sailors. They would seem to have entirely forgotten that they had had given into their charge a very sick old man. They seem to have drunk their way home. I'm not surprised and I do not blame them, but they are all of them lucky men. Now, I want you to go through the Missing List, if this man's name isn't there, it's bound to be amongst
KNOWN LOST
. Will you do that, Delahane? The lists are in the top drawer of the bureau in the next room.'

‘I know, sir. I will go and examine them.'

‘His memory must have been affected. He must have had a blow on the head, an ugly wound.'

Delahane returned after a few minutes.

‘Here are the particulars you want, Father. I think we've got our man safely home.' He began to read:

‘Dennis Fury, stoker. Aged sixty-seven.
H.M.T. Ronsa
…'

‘The address. Is there any address given?' asked Father Twomey, impatiently.

‘Yes, Hey's Alley.'

‘Hey's Alley. Let me see now. What parish is that, Delahane?'

‘Saint Sebastian's,' replied Delahane.

‘Good. We are nearly there. I shall ring up the parish priest. If they lived in Hey's Alley, then they belong to St Sebastian's.'

‘Yes, Father! That's right. Father Moynihan.'

‘Yes, Richard Moynihan. Get me his number, Delahane.'

‘Yes, Father.'

‘Then go up and see if those men are still asleep. If they are in any decent shape, you had better take them to the canteen for a meal. It will shut down in an hour.'

‘Your call, Father.'

‘Thank you.'

He waited till the caretaker had gone out.

‘Hello, Father Moynihan?'

‘I'm very sorry,' replied the voice at the other end, ‘but Father Moynihan has just been called out.'

‘Is that his housekeeper?'

‘Speaking.'

‘Please give Father Moynihan this message. It is urgent. Ask him will he please call here—the office of the Apostleship of the Sea. This is the chaplain speaking, Father Twomey.'

‘Very well, Father, I'll surely do that.'

‘Thank you.'

Father Twomey smiled as he put down the receiver. ‘He'll be home soon now, very soon. Poor old chap. I wonder what on earth he's doing on the wide oceans at his time of life? Imagine those young fools getting him drunk like that, what a journey it must have been! But I don't think that man will ever put foot on shipboard again.'

He got up, took his hat and umbrella and went out to lunch.

At three o'clock he was back again. He sat in the chair before the fire, his legs sprawled, he filled a pipe and smoked. He waited for Father Moynihan.

‘In twelve months,' he thought, ‘four hundred good men have gone from my parish and two hundred and twenty-two have found the bed of the sea. God help their very own! From one street alone fifteen of my parishioners are missing. If this war goes on much longer I'll have no parish at all.' He suddenly sat up, ‘Yes?' he called out.

‘Father Moynihan, Father.'

Father Twomey jumped up and opened the door.

‘How are you, Richard?' his hand outstretched. ‘I haven't seen you since five years ago at Maynooth.'

‘How are you, Joseph Twomey?' said the tall, grey-haired priest. ‘How are you getting along?' His voice was grave, quiet, he took the proffered chair and sat down.

‘Your housekeeper …'

‘I believe I have one of your parishioners upstairs—I hope I have. The name is Fury.'

‘I know the name. I knew the family of that name.'

‘This is an old man, very old, very sick, very tired,' continued Father Twomey.

‘The husband was posted missing from a transport a year ago,' said Father Moynihan. ‘A sad thing indeed. It struck the wife a bitter blow. What makes you think this man named Fury might be …,' he paused—‘Where is he? Is he here? I believe I should know him. Could I see him?'

‘In a moment, yes, but first I would like you to run your eye over these particulars, Richard.' He handed a long typewritten list to the priest.

‘I know the man indicated here. I know him very well. But I'm doubtful that you have the living man upstairs, Father Twomey, this man was definitely reported lost a year ago. There were no survivors from the
Ronsa.
'

‘Perhaps you had better come upstairs.'

Father Twomey knocked out his pipe and pocketed it. Father Moynihan followed him out. They went upstairs.

‘He may be asleep.'

‘Even so,' replied Father Moynihan, and followed the other to the end of the corridor.

‘In here.'

Father Twomey opened the door, stood aside for the other to pass, then closed it. He did not follow Father Moynihan to the bedside, but stood and waited. He saw the other bend low over the bed, then the hand was raised, a finger beckoned.

‘This poor creature,' said Father Moynihan ‘is Dennis Fury. I know. I know that face though the man has altered—dreadfully so—I know those tattoo marks on hand and wrists. And this,' he said pointing, ‘how terrible.'

He stared at the scar, ‘The old man must have been struck by something, a spar or the like.'

‘Probably. It is quite healed—and yet it looks always a fresh wound.'

‘The miracle to me,' said Father Moynihan ‘is that this man is here—lying in this bed, alive—warm—breathing. It is indeed a terrible home-coming, for there is no home to come to.'

He turned away from the bed, then on the point of leaving the room, he once more turned to look down at the old man. ‘He is deeply asleep,' he said.

‘I sat him in a chair this morning and he fell out of it. He was brought here by two young men, quite drunk. They said they were in charge of him, that they had to deliver him here, he might have been a sack of potatoes. They had got
him
drunk.'

‘Disgraceful. No matter, I think we had better go downstairs. There are things that I must do now.'

The two priests sat opposite each other in the office.

‘You know the man?' asked Father Twomey, offering his tobacco pouch to the other.

‘Thank you, Twomey. Yes, that man is Dennis Fury all right. I have known him for over twenty years. But there is a great change in him. He looks like a very old child. How astounding—he was not only given up as dead, but registered as such. I'm afraid this is going to be a terrible shock for the old woman.…'

‘His wife?'

‘Yes.'

‘He cannot be moved at present. And I think a doctor should see him this evening. I shall not forget to let the Marine authorities have a bit of my mind. To have sent that old man back in that state, dragged half-across the world by a couple of drunks …'

‘I myself would hold nothing against such men for getting drunk. Imagine what they may have been through,' said Father Moynihan.

‘I have been dealing with seamen for fifteen years,' Father Twomey protested.

‘Then you should have known better, Twomey.'

‘If you had seen the old man when they dragged him in here. However, the main thing is to get him home.'

‘It will be sad for him to learn that there is no home,' Father Moynihan said. ‘His wife has a room at St Stephen's Hospice, and has been there these past twelve months. She arrived there one very hot afternoon last July and asked for a room. She looked very tired and exhausted, and they took her in. She may not have known it at the time, but St Stephen's, as you know, is a hospice for the dying. Anyway, she has been there ever since. Her son, who is a trade union worker, and now in London, pays for her keep. But she does not know this. I'm afraid it's going to be a great disappointment to Dennis Fury, a man who has worked so hard all his life, and made one home after another for his family, the children of which are now scattered. I doubt very much whether the old woman has any heart left, certainly there can be no question of starting a home again. She has one other son in the Navy, at present stationed on the China coast—the youngest is in prison, and may be expected to get out in three years, all being well.…'

‘Oh! Those Furys—why I remember that case,' Father Twomey exclaimed.

‘I shall of course write to the children and tell them what has happened. This indeed is a return from the dead.…'

‘I've known cases of men turning up after two years, even three, who were assumed to have been drowned.…'

‘Well,' said Father Moynihan, ‘I shall now be able to persuade this woman to go home to Ireland and take the old man with her. It has been her pursuing dream for years. She has a sister there, living in a big empty house in Cork, the Mall, you know …,' and the other nodded his head—‘let them end their days there in peace! It is the best thing. There is nothing for them to remain for now, his days are numbered, one can see that, poor old chap—he'll never work again, never. Ah, but it's sad to be thinking of going home when there is no home. His wife did the most extraordinary thing on that hot July afternoon. She received a telegram that day about the sinking of the
Ronsa
, and in a sort of daze, went down to the shipping office to have it denied or confirmed. She left the door of her home wide open to the world, and never went back to shut it and has never been there since. Fortunately, her son-in-law heard about it and went down to Hey's Alley where she lived, he had the furniture put into storage, and then after a few visits paid to the woman in the Hospice, he decided to sell the few things there were—he knew she would not come away now—that all thought of home-making was finished. The few pounds he got he gave to the Mother Superior to look after for her. It will certainly carry them both to Ireland in comfort.'

He sat up in the chair, the smoking pipe dangling in his hand.

‘It was good of you to have contacted me right away. But I never expected as I came along here to be confronted by a man I'd long ago regarded as dead.'

Father Twomey took out his watch. He got up.

‘I wonder,' he said, ‘would you like to come up again, he may have waked.'

‘Yes, let us go up now.'

But looking into the room they found the man still sleeping, lying like a log, his heavy breathing filling the room.

‘He may sleep for hours.'

‘Let him sleep. But now I must go. You will call me again, Twomey, when the old man wakes up. You won't have him moved or anything—it is essential that I should talk to him. If I must prepare his wife for shocks, I must equally prepare him. It makes me glad I've known them so very long.'

‘I shall ring you at once. But I shall have a doctor here within the hour. He is very weak.'

They walked out again into the busy street, and stood there talking for a few minutes. Father Moynihan looked away towards the sea and thought of the old man in that sea and of the sea that had flung him back again.

‘It's sad, and at the same time it's wonderful,' he said—‘those two people united at last. They saw little of each other. Old Fury spent a whole life-time at sea except for a few years when he worked ashore … but that was always a cage to him, and I think, too, he was glad to escape out of it, and from the old woman's tongue. A simple man, too simple, for that woman who gathered the children round her and left the husband outside. Now they've all torn themselves away from her, and she has only him. I hope she will learn to be kinder to him now. But I must fly. Bye-bye, Twomey.'

‘Bye-bye,' Father Twomey gave a wave of the hand, smiled, then went back to the office.

Delahane was waiting for him, anxious, impatient.

‘That old chap's woken up, and his shouts made me nearly jump out of my skin. Will you come up at once, Father. He's been shouting about the sea, the sea on fire, somebody by the name of Lenahan.'

‘He's probably been dreaming. He may have had a nightmare. Let's go up.'

‘Yes, Father,' and he preceded the priest to the room where the old man lay.

When they came in, the old man was lying quiet in the bed, but he had heard the door open, and as they approached the bed, he opened his eyes and looked up at them.

‘Are you feeling better now?' Father Twomey asked him. He repeated: ‘
Are
you feeling
better
?'

‘Yes.' It was a bare whisper. He turned over on his side; ‘where am I?'

‘You are safe. You will soon be home.'

‘Where's Fanny?'

‘She will be here soon. Here, drink this.' He put his hand behind the old man's head, he held the glass to his lips.

After a moment or two, he withdrew the tumbler, sat back a little, and stared at Dennis Fury. He saw a shortish man, with iron-grey hair close cropped, long thin features, quite bloodless, and on his neck, seated like a vulture, the legacy from the sea. The partly opened mouth revealed blackened, broken teeth. The green-grey eyes were almost lost to view under the bushy grey brows. Somehow lying there with his knees drawn up, it seemed to accentuate the weakness, the fragility, of the old man. Father Twomey suddenly turned to Delahane.